Nannie Blue

I feel some sort of compulsion to post on this blog. I always, each week, think I will just delete it. I don't want to post one more time. I want to write about my true feelings, but a more positive post writes itself in my head and that is the one I publish. I have never liked to write. I have always expressed myself through photography. It pleases me much more to see what moment I caught in the jam jar by camera than to read my sad, bleeding heart sentences. I mean, I make my own work to enjoy it myself. If it pleases or at least touches others then I am in the bonus. So what I have been posting is that which I can stand to read.

I am feeling quite blue today. Many emotions today, the same ones I started feeling when I was four or so. I hated to miss anything. Mother was just saying how everynight I climbed out of my Peter Rabbit crib and would show back up in the living room. While I am insular and crave being alone, I also need to feel connected. I don't really want to miss things. That is why this blog is such a perfect medium for me. I can express whenever I want then read comments when they appear. I am alone yet not lonely.

I am blue today. I think this might be an upgrade from the anxiety I usually feel. Blue just is. I sort like my anxiety though. I get so much accomplished when I am anxious. It creates an energy. I make lists and produce and hurry and worry. It isn't all bad. In fact that is the way I operate day to day. But now I am blue. Blue makes me walk in circles. Blue lacks productivity. Blue makes me hungry. Blue makes me sigh and feel tired. But here it is. I don't have to like it I just have to feel it.

I am posting pictures of something lovely from someone I love. My friend Nan and I met just over a year ago in art classes at our local scrapbook store. I am tired of linking to that store. I have spent hundreds of dollars in there and yet still cannot manage to get added to their email list. That is fine. I will still shop there and recommend it and take classes there. It has become actually a new home for me. I have crossed paths with such beloved sisters there. I will just punish that store by no longer mentioning its name. Oh little bitter revenge. But I am right about it.

Anyway, Nan and I met last year. We look so much alike. She is funny and not all uber happy but positive and loving, so, you know, my kind of gal. We went to a baby shower a couple of months ago. Nan gave me the loveliest gift. A spontaneous, generous loving gift. She is a doll maker and collector of old linens and so forth. She loves fabric, like I do. She has a passion and apparently a large collection of hand monogramed linens. She used this "R" right out of her collection and made this apron for me.

Can you freaking imagine?

This is exactly why you don't give handmade things to people who don't make things. Because they don't get it. All of us that make things are so hungry to share. I have received so many spontaneous handmade gifts. It overwhelms me. It is one of the greatest joys and gratitudes I have.

Thank you, Nannie. It is so lovely and loving and I love it and love you.

Shit. Did I just make another fairly positive post?

Bookends

I just passed through the most recent phase of the Care and Keeping of Betty Jean and I call it "All I Could Do." That phase was bookended by the receipt of gifts from two of my HSGs (High School Girls aka Leaders of the Free World, more later).

The first was received during the non-existant, dismal, cold, blue Christmas. Last year I had written a blog post that included my admiration for mosaicist Amy Baldwin (actually it went something like she is so talented I could just want to run her down with my car). I received a box from Angie. You must say that to the voice of Mick Jagger like "Ain-Jay" and repeat. I am Bert to her Ernie. She sends this piece she commissioned from Amy herself.

So blown away. It was an otherwise giftless Christmas, not without lessons to be sure, this was so welcome and tender, perfect. But Ernie and I do that.

Four months later and at the end of this certain phase where I have given all I have to my particular situation I receive this. The note reads that she is sure I will never photograph or blog about this gift. From Babe aka Shelley. I am Babe to her Babe. 

Never be too sure, girl.

The mirror reads "I can deal with anything with the right drink and a girlfriend." 

It was utter concidence and without my awareness that the gifts received from these two landed when they did.

Well, not by chance.

What would I do without my girls?

Dear God, please don't make me find out. Amen

Bits of Bliss

I slept eight hours last night. I took time not to work first thing but to drink coffee and read while it rains on this spring morning.

It feels luxurious. Decadent.

I freaking deserve it.

I have worked my ass off to accomplish what I have in the last four months of my mother being here. Work and planning and care-giving and emptying and moving and raging and healing and understanding and confusion and revelation and resolution.

Depression. Anger. Anxiety. Joy.

Lunch with my girls, Penny and my daughter, yesterday. A night's sleep last night. A moment free of anxiety. Is it so much to ask? I am so grateful for it.

But you caught me at a rare moment of bliss. SO don't think I have stopped needing the support. I told my Leaders of the Free World (clearly, more on that later), aka my HSGs (High School Girls) that while it is difficult to continue to support me in this chronic state of suspensed care-giving, grief and pain, it is the sheer protraction of it that makes me require attention and support all the more. Difficult for me to ask. Yet I desparately need it. I need to be checked on.

My dear reader, if you feel so inclined to show a little love, support, especially a bit of humor, friend me on Facebook or use my email if you know it and do just that. A little note each day from someone who remembers me is manna for my hungry soul. I thank you in advance. Attention and care is the most blessed gift to give. Like this rainy day, I welcome the shower.